NY1 ItCH: The City’s First Lady: 'We are Talking about 2021'

While President Trump is busy firing yet another member of his team, Mayor de Blasio’s head coach is thinking of getting into the game.

It’s a move that was masterfully made by Hillary Clinton – who ran for the U.S. Senate as the clock was running out on her husband’s presidency. McCray could follow suit, running for Borough President or Public Advocate in 2021 as her husband faces term limits. And the plan is only helped by the fact that de Blasio served as Clinton’s campaign manager when she ran for the Senate in 2000.

The McCray momentum is moving incrementally – first casually mentioned by the First Lady to Cosmopolitan magazine last November after the mayoral election and pushed much further ahead last night when she spoke with NY1 Political Reporter Courtney Gross.

“I would consider running for office absolutely,’’ McCray told Gross.

“But we are taking about 2021?” Gross asked her.

“Yes, we are talking about 2021,’’ McCray replied.

With the mayor increasingly placing McCray in City Hall’s spotlight now – and getting criticism for it – it could be political inoculation for 2021 by making any talk of nepotism “old news.” This is McCray’s version of Hillary Clinton’s Senate “listening tour” in which Clinton was “simply” touring the state even though the subtext was that it was the first act in the script of a long political campaign.

McCray is actually fielding questions from the press corps this morning – another sign that a campaign may slowly be in the works. Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before a focus group will be asked about Dante de Blasio.